Perfect Home That Supports our Passion
Hey fellow manifesting folks! I feel moved to share my story and hope that it might help anyone on a similar creative or entrepreneurial journey, dealing with sudden change, moving etc. This story spans a few years and some major shifts, so it’s long!
I had a fractured childhood and adolescence growing up with lots of sadness and generational trauma. I have always had a strong imagination and a creative drive, so music and artistic expression have been my outlets. I have always felt a little different, and it has been a struggle through my twenties to figure out where I fit in professionally/how to heal past trauma/how to build up my self-esteem and self-worth.
After college, I was doing the corporate grind in NYC as an Executive Assistant, doing what I felt I had to do to be successful while also recording and playing shows around the city with my life partner/creative partner. The company I worked for was great and offered the stability I craved, but I knew that my life needed more freedom to create. I ended up assisting a family of musicians/entertainers in the West Village, which expanded my entire consciousness of what abundance meant and what it actually looked like to lead an unconventional, creative life outside of the M-F, 9-5. During this job, I got a major ping, like a lightning bolt, to create my own business that could grow and sustain me, my partner, and our future family so we could live in a musical garden of our own design in a compound/house upstate. I remember finding Lacy’s work around this time, and in a DI I saw a vision of a large art studio, so much love, children, success, and peace.
In 2017, my partner and I started a candle business in our tiny apartment in Brooklyn. It’s hard to say for sure, but I think our friends and family were perplexed about our decision to start making and selling candles. Isn’t it an oversaturated market? Isn’t it something only retired teachers do? It was a crockpot of struggle and success, and I was just so proud that it was *ours*. I didn’t realize it at the time, but every small order and market added up to $20K first year. After our first successful holiday season, I felt a big shift coming and it honestly scared the shit out of me. I had left my assisting job to work on candles full-time, while my partner worked at an art gallery in Manhattan. I leaned in, found a therapist, dove into Lacy’s work and continued to try to speak to my higher self instead of my fear.
Cut to March 2019: My partner was laid off from his job and our landlord gave us notice of eviction because he was selling the building. We panicked and realized we couldn’t afford to live in NYC anymore and decided it was time to take a chance on our business. Through a series of serendipitous events, we found a great little apartment on Main Street of a little artistic town upstate that was everything on our list. I found a part-time job making shrubs and my partner found an amazing photography job (what he went to school for). We moved our candle studio to my partner’s family’s (very unglamorous) warehouse 40 minutes away. This change took many leaps, prayers, tears, and sacrifices. I was happy that we found our next chapter outside of NYC, but something still felt really wrong. We later learned that our apartment was illegal, our building manager was a threatening lunatic and, after leaving our whole lives and friends in NYC, being alone in this town... we realized we were in veeeery deep. The building manager threatened to enter our apartment (unsupervised) on a weekly basis. When we told him we needed our privacy he taped our door shut from top to bottom. We decided we had to get out of there. We took the leap, made our list and started the hunt for a home again.
Then.... three days later, our new home appeared. A safe, glorious 3BR house, with a fenced in yard for our two dogs, and a heated cabin in the backyard that now houses our CANDLE STUDIO!!! We have a separate music studio where we can record our next album, a washer/dryer, a fireplace, there are even hearts in the damn fence. We’re not making candles in a one-bedroom apt, or in a smelly dusty factory 40 minutes away anymore... we have our own candle CABIN that I can walk to from my back door. Since we’ve moved here three months ago, our wholesale and retail orders have increased, and unique opportunities have presented themselves, like a sold out candle-making workshop we just hosted yesterday in SoHo.
It’s been really scary to take all of these leaps of faith, especially having come from an unstable and fractured environment growing up. Leaving our lives in NYC and starting out towards the great unknown has been a bit isolating, and all of the sudden change and moving has definitely taken its toll, but in my best moments it does feel like it’s all connected. I’m grateful that this work helps me get clear on what I want my future to look like, because I have felt the universe shifting and scheming to make those visions (and more!) a reality.
(Also ps; I’m a Pisces sun / Gemini rising, and a 2/4 Hermit/Opportunist Projector — so this all feels like a miracle lol)
Thank you for reading and for creating a safe space for all of us to share our journeys. It’s truly special!
-Emma
